THEATER REVIEW

Take LaBute out for a spin with 6 playlets of `autobahn'

March 13, 2006|By Chris Jones, Tribune arts critic

Typical Americans spend hours every day in their cars. So it makes sense that life's traumas invade the passenger cabin. People get mad in their Mazdas. Argue in their Acuras. Cry in their Chevies. Have sex in their Subarus.

That's the basic idea behind Neil LaBute's "autobahn," a collection of six separate playlets wherein a driver and a person in the passenger seat converse. And, occasionally, canoodle. Malevolently. For the themes of this little auto show -- in its Midwest premiere at the Profiles Theatre -- will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with those good old neo-Jacobean LaBute obsessions: sex, control, power, manipulation, nastiness, revenge.

"autobahn" is not what you'd call major LaBute. As if often the case with very short plays (these are mostly 10-15 minutes long), there's only so far the narrative can drive. Other LaBute pieces have far more startling concepts. This one is necessarily static. And, inevitably, the show also gets involved in what you might call iconic car themes -- the first playlet, "bench seat," is like a dark repudiation of "Out of Gas on Lover's Leap." At times, it feels like LaBute is writing for the actor-training market -- in no time at all, college teachers will have seen these simple little plays more times than they can stand. They're that easy to do.

All that said, though, this is a rather engaging couple of hours in the best Chicago storefront tradition. You could easily double or triple these roles (no characters return), but director Darrell W. Cox apparently has a lot of mainly young actors anxious for the work. Thus, despite the tiny size of this theater, we see a dozen vastly different Chicago actors, which surely keeps things interesting. And because radios are part of road culture, Cox underscores all the door openings and closings with a cool mix tape.

Almost all of the scenes are competently performed -- and a couple of them are a good bit better than that. In "road trip," we watch a male high-school coach (played with earnest sleaze by fringe stalwart Jack McCabe) abscond with a vulnerable freshman (the compelling Amy Speckien). In typical LaBute fashion, we don't quite get the horrendous nature of this road trip until the car is long down the highway.

And the very best piece of all comes at the end. Called "autobahn" (like the whole show), it's nothing more than a one-sided conversation about an adopted kid. But as her husband (the wordless Bill Hyland) keeps his eyes on the road, the superb actress Veronica Sheaffer (as the playlet's unnamed woman) finds so many layers in her gripping monologue about the guilt and uncertainty of parenting, she's positively mesmerizing.

LaBute has his detractors but he's rarely been accused of being dull. And "autobahn" is a subtly wrought and very cleverly crafted piece -- one that ultimately constructs quite a telling study of how our lives always change the most not when we're still, but when we're already on the way to somewhere completely different.